


What a Beautiful World (you must live in)

by Rahmi



Category: Star Ocean: Till the End of Time
Genre: Body Dysphoria, Friendship, M/M, Mutually Unrequited, Self-Harm, Self-Hatred, Unresolved Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-11-20
Updated: 2010-11-20
Packaged: 2017-11-28 08:50:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,324
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/672528
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rahmi/pseuds/Rahmi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>'I hate nothing more than myself!'</p>
            </blockquote>





	What a Beautiful World (you must live in)

**Author's Note:**

> I've never posted this one, so.
> 
> Please, please, please tell me if something in here is offensive or needs warnings. It was written for H/C bingo a while back and someone was going to look over it for me, but we lost touch. Mostly, it's about how much Albel hates himself.

They don't actually spend that much time on Elicoor II when they have a chance. Fayt likes to drag Albel across the universe.  
  
Like here. They've landed on a resort planet that has a red sun. It's dying, which Fayt should theoretically be interested in, but what actually happens is that he spends so much time staring at the way the light looks on Albel's skin that he sends Albel into _fits._  
  
"What are you staring at?" Albel demands.  
  
Fayt flicks his eyes to the ground and shrugs. "Nothing, I guess," he says.  
  
It's the wrong thing to say. Fayt knows it as soon as it's out of his mouth, which, great, it would have been nice if he'd figured that out before he said it, but that's the story of his life at this point.  
  
Albel's mouth twists. "Keep your eyes to yourself, maggot," he snarls and stomps away.  
  
Even though he knows it's going to piss Albel off, Fayt watches him go. He's not staring to be obnoxious; he just wants to understand.  
  
He knows Albel hates himself. It's one of those things that're hard to miss, even for someone like Sophia, who thinks Albel's kind of cute most of the time.  
  
("You're going to take care of him, right, Fayt?" Sophia's cheeks are puffed up in that adorable way that she thinks makes her looks scarier.  
  
Fayt shrugs and reaches out to tweak her hair fondly. She's the only one who worries about Albel, other than him, of course. "As much as he'll let me," he tells her.  
  
"Nope, you don't get to use that as an excuse," says Sophia. "You should take care of him even if he doesn't let you."  
  
"I don't think you've ever seen Albel when he doesn't want someone to do something, Sophia," Fayt says, grinning.  
  
"Sure I have. People lose limbs and... other stuff. But you still have to try, Fayt! I'll be rooting for you!" She pauses and tilts her head. "And in the meantime, I'll try to see if my power of Connection will work on body parts."  
  
"You're a good friend," Fayt says, solemn, before he reaches out to tickle her mercilessly.)

* * *

  
The first thing Fayt does whenever they get a room is to drape all the mirrors or reflective surfaces with the sheets from one of the bed. Albel stands in the doorway and watches him without saying a word.  
  
"Done," Fayt says.  
  
"A waste of time," says Albel.  
  
Fayt crosses his arms and raises his eyebrows, but holds his tongue. For a second. "I notice you didn't set foot inside the room until I was finished," he snarks.  
  
A snort is his only answer. Albel bestows the draped mirror a suspicous look before he gives it a wide berth, skirting ridiculously around the circumference of the room so he can reach a bed. It makes Fayt's heart ache, no matter how stupid and absurd it looks.  
  
"You know," Fayt starts because he can't leave well enough alone, "If you'd just--"  
  
"Why are you still talking, fool?" Albel snaps. He snatches the blankets off the floor and curls up on the useable bed with a little glare Fayt's way.  
  
Fayt loves that little cinkle between his eyebrows probably a lot more than is strictly healthy. He swallows before he can say something to that effect and instead rubs a hand across his eyes. "It's not late enough for us to go to bed yet," he tries.  
  
The glare gets a deeper. "I'm tired," Albel says, baring his teeth, "You kicked me all night."  
  
"I think the screaming is what kept you up, Albel."  
  
"I don't scream, maggot."  
  
"Of course not," Fayt says, and throws his hands in the air. "That must have been me."  
  
A breeze blows through the open window and ruffles the sheet Fayt has over the very large mirror in the center of the room. Albel's entire body tenses up to the point where Fayt actually _winces_ just looking at him.  
  
He takes two strides over to the window and closes it. It's going to make the room stuffy as hell in a few hours, but it's worth it. It's always going to be worth it. "Relax," Fayt says, "I've got it covered. Go to sleep."  
  
"You're imaging things," Albel says and deliberately rearranges himself into a careless sprawl.  
  
Instead of responding, Fayt skims out of his shirt and throws it on the ground. Unlike Albel, he doesn't like sleeping in his clothes, but he's not suicidal enough to strip down to his underwear. As it is, Albel's suddenly watching him warily again, like he's going to throw himself on him and start demanding things.  
  
Fayt's going to go ahead and reiterate that he's _not_ suicidal.  
  
He does, however, want to murder whoever had a hand in making Albel this way.  
  
"Don't kick me," Albel warns when Fayt climbs in to bed next to him. He puts his back to Fayt immediately which Fayt's always taken as an expression of trust rather than one of rejection. They sleep back to back most nights, one of them watching the door and the other watching any other entrances.  
  
"Try to sleep through the night," Fayt advises.  
  
As Albel's back slots against his, Fayt feels himself relax into a pleasant drowsiness. It really is to early to go to sleep for the day, but he can feel the sharp planes of Albel's shoulder blades against his spine as Albel curls into his customary ball, and there's nothing out there that can't wait.  
  
The sheet covered mirror catches his attention again.  
  
Albel once scratched the crap out of the bulkheads in the Diplo because they were shiny enough to see himself in. He hadn't offered that explanation, but Fayt left the room with intact walls and came back to find them scratched, burned, and otherwise made opaque.  
  
He'd found Albel huddled into a nervous wreck next to the bed, one hand clutching the Crimson Scourge while the metal claws raked repeatedly at his thigh in agitation.  
  
("What're you doing?" he asks gently.  
  
Albel's lips skin back from his teeth. "What does it look like, worm?" he growls.  
  
"It looks like you're hurting yourself for no reason," says Fayt. He flattens his hand over Albel's metal one and yanks it off of his mangled thigh to see the damage. It's not as bad as it could be, but the long, thin scratches are deep into the muscle.  
  
There are similar scars there already; he can't do anything about those. These, though, these he can heal. He sketches the symbols directly onto Albel's skin, because it's there and he can, and uses Albel's blood because it's easier than trying to find a pen.  
  
"Hold still," he says, and immediately has to bat away Albel's hand when it goes to smear the runes. "Knock it off."  
  
"Leave it," Albel says.  
  
Fayt doesn't look up from the wounds. "No," he says simply.  
  
The wounds knit together slowly. Fayt's new to healing runology so they don't scar clean either, but Albel's not going to look down at himself long enough to care any time soon. He's learning these things, slowly.  
  
"Next time, you could just say something," says Fayt. He sits back on his heels and wants to touch Albel so badly it kind of aches inside his chest. "It'd be easier on both of us."  
  
Albel turns his head away with a dismissive snort.)

* * *

  
"The worms are staring," Albel says. His claws are twitching in a vaguely worrying way against the Crimson Scourge's scabbard. "I'll cut their eyes from their skulls if they don't stop."  
  
"You can't do that here," Fayt points out gently.  
  
He gets it, he does. Albel hates when _Fayt_ looks at him for too long. Total strangers? He's liable to gouge their eyes out and laugh to cover the fact that his flesh hand is shaking.  
  
Earth, however, is not the right place for eye removal. It wouldn't have been a big deal on Elicoor II or Vanguard III, but Earth... Let's just say that it had taken some fast talking for them to even let Albel carry his weapon. Fayt's almost sure they've used up all of their goodwill from saving the universe at this point.  
  
"Just ignore them," he advises. It's the best they can do. "If it helps, you can _imagine_ yourself disemboweling them, as long as you remember that imagining is as far as you can get. You can't actually hurt anyone."  
  
Albel looks intrigued. "I need practice with disemboweling," he says thoughtfully. "The last time, I split the worm's intestines and spilled foulness on my boots."  
  
Fayt slants a sideways look at him and has to sigh at the smile. "You can imagine disemboweling as long as you never tell me about it again," he says.  
  
"Weakling."  
  
"I just don't like organs."  
  
"Hmph."  
  
There's another woman staring at Albel, eyes darting from the curve of his hips to the breadth of his shoulders. Fayt sends her a nasty look before Albel can notice her and watches her drop her head with satisfaction.  
  
That's one less. Now if he can only do something about the other _ten_ people gawking, they'd be in business.  
  
Fayt's not stupid enough to tell Albel that he's a little to blame for some of the staring. A lot of it is because he's in what amounts to a skirt and a crop top on a conservative planet. Albel _has_ a whole other outfit that mostly fits in on Earth, but he hates wearing it.  
  
Fayt still hasn't quite worked out why it's okay for Albel to show skin, but it's not okay for Albel, Fayt, or anyone in the world to look at it. He's spent more nights than he'd like to admit corresponding with a therapist that thinks he's writing a paper and he's still a little sketchy on the answer.  
  
It's not just the clothes, though. Albel's _pretty._ It hadn't mattered much on Elicoor II where he'd been known as the Wicked and feared throughout Airyglyph and Aquaria, but here he's just another exotic off-worlder in a sea of them. He doesn't have wings or flippers, no, but he's got red eyes and dark hair that shades to pale.  
  
So, there was that. And like he said, Fayt wasn't stupid enough to say it.  
  
(He calls Albel beautiful once, on accident.  
  
More accurately, what he says is, "He thought he could take you because you're pretty." It's an accident. True, but an accident. The guy had only come after Albel because Albel has long hair and a pretty face.  
  
He's half expecting homicide when it slips out, but Albel looks so honestly bewildered that Fayt wants to curl up around him and make him understand.  
  
"Dream on, maggot," is what Albel finally settles on.  
  
Fayt catches him by the arm when he goes to walk by. "I'm sorry," he says, honestly. He's sorry that he said anything and he's sorry that Albel doesn't believe him.)

* * *

  
Albel won't look at himself in a mirror and he won't touch himself unless he absolutely has to; Fayt's seen him bandage wounds with his metal claw rather than use the flesh and blood one. It's ridiculous and heartbreaking.  
  
"How can you just...?" Albel starts one night.  
  
Fayt feels him shift against his back. He wants to turn onto his side and look at Albel, but forces himself to hold still instead. "How can I what?"  
  
Albel's back flexes against his, deliberately, before his hand comes up to rest, featherlight, on Fayt's shoulder. "You don't object," he says, "What kind of fool does that make you?"  
  
The wall isn't even a slightly interesting, no matter how much Fayt squints at it and tells himself that he _can't turn over_. "I don't know how to explain it," he finally settles on, "Except to tell you that I don't think there's anything wrong with you. Sure you're kind of homicidal on your best days, but I."  
  
"You what, maggot?"  
  
"I love you," he says, "I know you don't really get how I can, but I do." Nervous sweat is starting to prickle in his armpits and along his cheeks. He can smell it, pungent and gross, and knows Albel's got to be smelling it too.  
  
"You watched the ceremony," Albel says carefully.  
  
For a second, Fayt's lost. He can't see where Albel's looking, not without turning, and that's Albel's _skin_ touching his, voluntarily. Then he hears Albel's claws clatter against something metal and realizes he's talking about the Crimson Scourge.  
  
'I hate nothing more than myself,' Albel had said.  
  
"I remember," Fayt says.  
  
"You remember," Albel mocks, his back tensing hard enough to send his shoulder blades into Fayt's back with a quick jab of pain.  
  
The wall is still not interesting. Fayt keeps staring anyway; his heart is pounding hard enough and fast enough that Albel's got to be able to feel it through his ribs. "What else do you want me to say, Albel?" he asks.  
  
The fingers on his shoulder disappear suddenly and Fayt can't help the little noise of protest that escapes his throat. There's a slight pause where they both freeze, then: " _I_ don't want to touch me," Albel hisses. "How can you just..."  
  
"I know," says Fayt. "I know."  
  
You'd have to be an idiot to miss the fact that Albel hates being in his own skin.  
  
Fayt loves him, but he can't do anything about it. How do you convince someone who hates themselves so much that you... feel the opposite? It's hard. It's not fair and it sucks and Fayt wants to scream and then plop Albel into Federation therapy until they're both old men and he can say, "I love you, you're beautiful," and have Albel do something other than squint at him in bemusement.  
  
They lie back to back for the rest of the night, not saying anything.


End file.
